India's GDP is likely to grow at 6.5 to 7 per cent in the current fiscal year amid global challenges which may impact exports, said Economic Survey 2023-24 tabled in Parliament on Monday. The growth projected for 2024-25 is lower than the economic growth rate of 8.2 per cent estimated for the previous financial year. The Reserve Bank has projected the GDP growth for the fiscal year ending March 2025 at 7.2 per cent.
According to the IMD forecast, monsoon is likely to be normal this year.
Skymet is the first major Indian weather forecasting agency to have issued a monsoon forecast for 2016.
Despite volume growth in the export segment and strong demand in the domestic market, pricing uptick is eluding Indian agrochemical companies.
Till Thursday, the country had received 41 per cent less June rainfall than normal - the scantiest in a decade and one of the rarest occasions when the shortfall in the month was more than 30 per cent - private weather forecaster Skymet said in its daily weather forecast on Friday.
The bodies of three labourers were on Saturday pulled from the rubble of a wall that collapsed at a construction site in the Vasant Vihar area in New Delhi amid heavy rain, officials said.
All sub-regions have been receiving good rainfall except the North-east and east region of the country, where the deficiency has reached 23 per cent.
According to Skymet Weather, the initial surge in the Monsoon rains can be attributed to the transition of El Nino into the neutral phase.
A third of FMCG sales and half of motorcycle sales come from the hinterlands
Retail inflation declined to a five-year low of 3.54 per cent in July mainly on account of subdued prices of food items, and base effect, according to official data released on Monday. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) based retail inflation was 5.08 per cent in June 2024 and 7.44 per cent in July 2023.
The June-September monsoon has so far delivered 1 per cent higher rainfall than average
Monsoon is critical for the country's 263 million farmers and their rice, cane, corn, cotton and soybean crops because nearly half of its farmland lacks irrigation.
For the second successive year, Monsoon is likely to be below normal with parts of north-west and central India to be the most affected.
A sudden downpour in Delhi caught citizens off guard and caused heavy waterlogging and traffic jams on Tuesday while Mumbai breathed a sigh of relief as showers stopped a day after heavy rain brought the metropolis to its knees.
In the months immediately following the 2024 tragedy, reporting on the landslide per se had been a straightforward affair. On one side was death and destruction. On the other side, survivors and the business of survival. It was black and white. What direction to take was clear. Rehabilitation in comparison, felt like a complex situation. One that is fraught with shades of grey. As grey as human life, explains Shyam G Menon.
A likely western disturbance over north India during the weekend might cause heavy to very heavy showers in a few places, including New Delhi.
Monsoon normally hits Kerala on June 1 but this year, Met department had predicted that it will hit the state on June 5.
A depression over the southeast Arabian Sea, south of Porbandar in Gujarat, is likely to move northwestward and intensify into a cyclonic storm, the India Meteorological Department said on Tuesday.
Light to moderate rain in many areas with heavy rain at isolated places is likely to occur in West Bengal's coastal districts of North 24 Parganas, South 24 Parganas and Purba Medinipur.
The southwest monsoon which reached the country on May 30 well within its normal onset date
A total of 435 people died in the country due to extreme weather events during the last three months of the southwest monsoon, according to the data compiled by the India meteorological department.
'It affects our economy, it is very important in many ways.' 'So we have to be the foremost experts in the world on the monsoon.' 'But the best minds in India have not devoted their time to the study of monsoon and they have followed the fashions of the West.'
On December 1and 2, flood-ravaged Chennai received more rainfall in 24 hours than it had seen on any day since 1901, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL), which operates India's largest airport, dismissed the expert committee report as "inaccurate", claiming it relied on "probabilities, hypothesis, and conjectures" rather than empirical data or complete documentation.
The load-shedding has been in force for the last several months as the water level in reservoirs depleted drastically due to deficient rainfall last year.
The IMD said that there has been an increase in the rainfall activity in Kerala and monsoon could hit the state anytime now.
Ten to 20 days of heatwave are expected against the normal of four to eight days in the entire April-June period.
Paucity of monsoon rainfall alone is not a sufficient determinant of drought, maintains the World Meteorological Organisation.
The river, 17 km of which pass through Vadodara, is home to some 300 crocodiles and an encounter with these reptiles is a common occurrence for those living in areas along its banks, the official said.
Any long dry spell could cause moisture stress in the standing crop during the crucial maturing stage and also make it prone to pest and disease attacks.
Higher inflation has again become a matter of concern for fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies. After prices of commodities like sugar and wheat moved higher and stabilised at those levels, the crude oil too surged, adding to FMCG firms' worries. Besides, a dry spell in August in the ongoing monsoon season impacted rural demand.
Automobile (auto) retail sales in India grew by an impressive 14 per cent in July compared to the same period last year, driven by a surge in the rural economy, good product availability, and product launches. While passenger vehicles (PVs) saw a 10 per cent increase during this period, inventory levels have surged to a historic high of 67-72 days in PVs, equating to Rs 73,000 crore worth of stock, according to the Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (Fada). This poses a risk to dealer sustainability. Inventory levels in July 2023 were only 50-55 days, equating to a stock worth Rs 49,833 crore. In June 2024, inventory was between 62 and 67 days, with a stock value of Rs 60,000 crore.
In view of high inflation and deficient monsoon rainfall, the Reserve Bank may find it difficult to cut the key lending rate to boost the economy as is being demanded by the industry.
Expected to be over 100% of long average period.
Here's a look at the water-logging in the city.
Less-than-expected rainfall and a poor spatial distribution, experts say, can rekindle fears of a rise in food and fuel inflation that can have an impact on the RBI's monetary policy. The fear of less than optimal rainfall due to El Nino this year, analysts believe, is the biggest short-term risk for the markets, which they said has not been fully priced in yet by them. Monsoon set over Kerala on June 08, a week later than its scheduled date.
'It is the most prone month for the development of cyclones in the pre-monsoon period.'
